BLACK BOX METHOD
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 309 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
- “A strategy for investigating a complex object without knowledge or assumptions about its internal make-up, structure or parts” (K. KRIPPENDORFF, 1986, p.7)
The general idea of this method is to send inputs into the system and to monitor the resulting outputs, making conjectures about the internal processes within the system that can explain how a specified input produces a specific output. In general, systems are “grey” boxes, i.e. entities about which at least something is known.
The black box method is widely applied in engineering, biology and other sciences, because of its heuristic value.
However, as stated by KRIPPENDORFF: “The isomorphism between the black box and its model, which the method aims to establish, does not imply structural correspondences between the two” (Ibid). One should thus be careful and not extract unwarranted conclusions from experiments that could be incomplete or ill interpreted.